


Caesura - McGee's New Story

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1424]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 21:50:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21381142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: After Deep Six and the threatening legal action, McGee decides to try to write a different story. Of course, being an NCIS agent doesn't make that easy.
Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1424]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/444514
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17
Collections: Cutsycat's Five Prompts Challenge





	Caesura - McGee's New Story

**Author's Note:**

> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 03/25/2003 for the word [caesura](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2003/03/25/caesura).
> 
> caesura[ si-zhoo r-uh, -zoo r-uh, siz-yoo r-uh ]  
noun, plural cae·su·ras, cae·su·rae [si-zhoo r-ee, -zoo r-ee, siz-yoo r-ee] .  
Prosody. a break, especially a sense pause, usually near the middle of a verse, and marked in scansion by a double vertical line, as in know then thyself ‖ presume not God to scan.  
Classical Prosody. a division made by the ending of a word within a foot, or sometimes at the end of a foot, especially in certain recognized places near the middle of a verse.  
any break, pause, or interruption.
> 
> This is for Prompt Bonus Picture of the October 2019 Five Prompts Challenge located [here](https://ncis-discuss.livejournal.com/212133.html) provided by rose_malmaison and similar to the below.

McGee glanced at the photo sitting on his writing desk at home. It wasn’t what most people would expect to be a treasured photo. After all, everyone had been in work clothes.

McGee didn’t even know what they’d been looking at anymore. He was sure it was related to a case, but the entire team had been in it. He knew that most people thought there were better photos of the four of them, but McGee liked this one. 

With the exception of Gibbs and some of the extraneous paraphernalia that the rest of them were wearing they looked like they could have all been out jogging together and decided to stop and chat. He didn’t even know who’d taken it as the whole team had been in the photo. It must have been one of the crime scene techs that had joined them temporarily or something. 

Tony, Ziva, and himself all had what could be passed for rain jackets with no identifying characteristics that they were actually NCIS agents. In fact, if it weren’t for Tony’s badge being a touch obvious in the picture, he would fit right in with a casual jog or stroll. McGee didn’t know many people who wore jeans to jog, but at least they were casualwear.

Ziva’s hand position didn’t fit that of a casual jogger, a touch too much tension in her grip, but otherwise her clothes were perfect. Though again, she too had jeans on which was a bit meh for jogging, but again good for friends out and about together. Maybe they should be hiking instead of jogging.

McGee jotted this down on his notepad beside his typewriter before returning to studying the picture. Gibbs stood out the most, looking like he’d come straight from church. McGee looked at himself in the picture, noting the crime scene gloves looked out of place and his shirt was a touch too formal for a gathering with friends. He almost kind of bridged the gap between Tony and Ziva, and Gibbs. 

He didn’t want to use the photo to write a casefic. Deep six had been too close to what he did for a living and there had already been grumblings that he might be facing legal charges over the book. Still the photo had struck a chord in him. 

He thought perhaps he could write something other than a casefic. Maybe a murder mystery or a thriller. Heck, even a romantic comedy could be interesting. He probably wouldn’t make it a romantic comedy as the team would tease him mercilessly if they found out, but it was an interesting idea to pursue.

His editor wanted him to write a sequel to Deep Six, but honestly he didn’t want to until whatever legal battle was going to happen was resolved. He knew he was already going to lose a pretty good chunk of his sales revenue to that. He really wanted to write something that wouldn’t have someone trying to sue him.

The photo had inspired him to try to take something that had been actually taken at an NCIS crime scene and see if he could transform it into a story that was completely different and not at all related to NCIS. Maybe this time he would manage not to piss off all of his coworkers as well. He made a note to find a random name generator, so that it wouldn’t be so obvious if his characters were based off of them.

Though, truthfully, his plan was to try and create original characters instead of basing them off of real people. He thought he might try his hand at D&D character creators to help. He knew he’d gotten quite lucky, despite the possible legal battle, for his first book to have been picked up and he was hoping that now that he had contacts with people in the publishing industry that it would be easier to publish something different.

His plan was to write a story about four friends in a copse by a nearby graveyard. He hadn’t figured out exactly what his plot would be. He was going to try winging it this time.

Last time, he’d made an outline and tried to plot out every detail and he thought that was the reason that it had ended up so similar to the cases that it had been based off of. So this time he was just going to write and see what happened. Heading over to youtube, he searched for a song that would fit the somber mood of a graveyard, but not be all deathmarch like. 

The Streets of Laredo popped out at him from his search history and he clicked on it. He’d never heard the song before, but it was kind of catchy, yet still somber. This particular version was by Johnny Cash and he decided that it would be the perfect music to play on repeat for the first scene of his new novel.

As the music started, Tim imagined Gibbs dressed as a cowboy stepping into the graveyard. “What in tarnation is happening here?”

McGee couldn’t help snickering to himself. There was no way that Gibbs would ever say that. The pacing and verbiage just wasn’t right. 

Still he wasn’t trying to stay true to anyone’s character with this story, so he went with it. He mentally called this character Gibbs, but knew he’d have to figure out a better name for him later. The DiNozzo in his head, looked over at Sheriff Gibbs and pasted on a charming smile, “Why howdy there, officer. We’re just out for a stroll today. Is there a problem?”

At this point in time, McGee was practically reduced into giggles. Somehow this song was making him write everyone as if they were in a western. It amused the hell out of him, but he kept going. 

He hoped that when he went to edit this chapter that the caesuras would be correct. His editor had complained about them in Deep Six. Apparently, he’d been doing them wrong. He hadn’t understood this and after researching what the hell a caesura was, he still wasn’t sure he understood, but he was going to try to improve them so that things flowed better this time without his editor feeling the need to try to change every word in his novel.

The Ziva in his head batted her eyelashes at the sheriff, “Hey there, handsome. What are you doing in this part of the neighborhood.”

“Heard that there was a disturbance going on around here. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” Gibbs, or Melroy Tim decided would be the sheriff’s new last name, gave the fetching Israeli woman a once over.

“Of course not, officer,” Ziva, Tim still didn’t know what to call her character, simpered. “We’ve been minding our own business walking along this here, trail. Ain’t heard nothing all day except for our own voices.”

“What about him?” The sheriff nodded towards what had been Gibbs in the original photo this was based off of.

The McGee character piped up, “Oh he’s with me, officer. Sorry, he looks so out of place. I just picked him up from church.”

The sheriff’s gaze drifted over all four of them before he dropped a wink at Neli, which Tim had just decided was going to be Ziva’s character’s name. “Alright, then. You all stay out of trouble, you here? I’m going to move along, now.”

“Of course, officer.” Johnny, Tony’s character, replied suavely. 

The four friends exchanged glances and waited until the sheriff was out of hearing distance. “That was a close call,” Rabbit, Jimmy’s character even though he wasn’t in the picture, announced as he stepped out from behind one of the bushes.

Tim still wasn’t sure what name to give himself, but his character nodded in agreement. “Yeah, we better get out of here.”

“We can’t leave, yet,” Fera, Abby’s character, interrupted.

“Why not?” Neli turned and shot her a challenging look. 

“Gramps needs to pay his respects to great grandma, remember? That’s why we were all out here to begin with.”

“Oh, right.” Tim’s character looked a bit sheepish.

The older gentleman still dressed in church clothes, nodded his head slowly and ambled off in the direction of his mother’s grave. She’d been gone a long time already, but he always missed her during this time of year. There was something about the aromas that filled her kitchen during the holidays that always made him yearn for her presence even after she’d been dead and buried for a good twenty years. The other four slowly followed the older gentleman to pay their respects as well.

The ringing of his phone startled Tim and he cursed as he looked at the caller id and realized it was dispatch. That was the one problem with this job. He could never guarantee devoted writing time to his stories. 

With a sigh he answered the phone and took down the information for where he needed to meet the rest of the team. Who knew when he’d get back to this story, but he also loved what he did, so he wouldn’t change anything. He tried to quickly jot down whatever notes he had about where he thought the story might be going in hopes of being able to get back into the story relatively quickly the next time they had down time, but he knew it would probably be a while before he had a moment to think about this story again.

**Author's Note:**

> The dictionary.com series has no stories already written for it after this one, so I will be posting at least no more stories before I stop posting again. I'm hoping to get more stories written before then, so that I don't stop posting for a while. Wish me luck! 
> 
> It's 2019 now and I have closed my 2018 Prompt collection, but fear not my 2019 Prompt Collection is now open [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2019/profile). Just click the sign up link. ;) It will remain open until the beginning of 2020. I'm hoping to complete all the 2019 prompts by the end of 2020. Do not fear I have not forgotten about the 2018 prompts and will continue working through them. It's just easier for me to not get overwhelmed if I keep the prompts separated by the year they were given to me.
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes. Please note if you have already voted in the poll and would like to request more stories you can just add a comment to the poll. Please include the name along with the prompt, so that I can appropriately gift the prompt to you.
> 
> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is [here](https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq). If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. 
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 


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